{"product_id":"towering-above-harlem-geographies-of-race-and-the-power-of-elite-institutions-hardback-9781479831371","title":"Towering Above Harlem; Geographies of Race and the Power of Elite Institutions (Hardback) 9781479831371","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eTowering Above Harlem\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eGeographies of Race and the Power of Elite Institutions\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eSteven Gregory (Author), Arlene Dávila (Foreword by), Elizabeth Chin (Edited by)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781479831371\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 30 October 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e336 pages, 13 b\/w images\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A masterful work from the late Steven Gregory, \u003ci\u003eTowering Above Harlem\u003c\/i\u003e stands as a powerful testament to his legacy as a humanist, activist, urban anthropologist, and uncompromising critic. Exemplifying his sharp, anti-racist analysis and intimate ethnographic style, this book offers a keen examination of the intersections of race, class, and power, exposing how institutional elites manufacture inequality. Gregory's work challenges readers to engage critically, resist injustice, and never lose hope.\" - Arlene Dávila, author of \u003ci\u003eBarrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos and the Neoliberal City\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Steven Gregory has gifted us a third, tremendous contribution to a field he unknowingly pioneered: Black Geographies. \u003ci\u003eTowering Above Harlem\u003c\/i\u003e will tower over that field in perpetuity. It will also provide a forever manual on how—and why--to read the racialized and spatialized cultures of our most powerful institutions. What a legacy!\" - Jacqueline Nassy Brown, author of \u003ci\u003eDropping Anchor, Setting Sail: Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Steven Gregory has left us with a masterpiece that marshals his genius for ethnographic writing while making a singular contribution to Black geographies, historical anthropology, and urban studies. \u003ci\u003eTowering Above Harlem\u003c\/i\u003e is at once an unflinching account of how elite institutions enact socio-spatial, racialized, and class-based dispossession, and a clarion call, invigorating the enduring quest for justice for Black and brown communities within and beyond New York City.\" - Oneka LaBennett, author of \u003ci\u003eGlobal Guyana: Shaping Race, Gender, and Environment in the Caribbean and Beyond\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Steven Gregory has given us a timely and yet untold story on the coordination and entrenchment of expansive institutional power and its impacts on socially marginalized communities in Manhattan's Upper West Side. Painstakingly researched and rich in theory, \u003ci\u003eTowering above Harlem \u003c\/i\u003eis critical reading for urban studies scholars and anyone interested in the institutional practices that have been part of New York's political economy.\" - Karla Slocum, author of \u003ci\u003eBlack Towns, Black Futures: The Enduring Allure of a Black Place in the American West\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCharts racialized and class-based exclusion in Morningside Heights and its surrounding area by elite institutions\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e New York City's storied diversity has also been a story of racialized class discrimination. \u003ci\u003eTowering Above Harlem\u003c\/i\u003e focuses on understudied players in this process: the elite institutions of Morningside Heights - Columbia University, Teachers College and the Riverside Church - to reveal the troubling ways in which they exploited existing geographic features to build a racially and economically exclusive \"city on a hill.\"\u003cbr\u003e In his final book-length work, Steven Gregory explores the long history of economic and racial discrimination in Morningside Heights, beginning in the late 19th century and extending into the present day. This exclusion of the surrounding racial minorities and working-class population has been enacted physically, through the acquisition of property by Columbia and others, but it has also been enacted through a variety of discourses and practices aimed at setting apart the so-called \"civilization-building\" mission of the elites overlooking Harlem from the racialized others in the vicinity. The book shows that the major institutions of Morningside Heights have since the beginning tried to physically secede from the Black and Puerto Rican communities geographically below the Morningside plateau, while also symbolically rising above them as beacons of progress. \u003cbr\u003e The volume charts the coordinated effort among elites to use space to naturalize relations of power and prestige, illuminating the past, present, and uncertain future of racial discrimination and exclusivity in Morningside Heights and in New York City at large.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"NYU Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52591101575448,"sku":"9781479831371","price":60.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/towering-above-harlem-geographies-of-race-and-the-power-of-elite-institutions-hardback-9781479831371","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}